Especially given the manifest distorting effects of some high-profile MSM linking to their select favourites; the unofficial patronage bestowed by the main political parties who provide links to their favoured few; and the exponential growth of mutual-back-slapping advertising networks.

For example, it appears that 10 of the Top 11 Wikio blogs are supported by MessageSpace revenue, and benefit from this community’s links and heightened profile.

Liberal Conspiracy is the exception, but the list establishes a direct correlation between Top ranking blogs and MessageSpace.

Of course, there are those who will say that MessageSpace makes use of these blogs precisely because they attract a lot of traffic, not vice versa.

But the benefits are manifestly mutual. MessageSpace says: ‘We work with some of the best, high traffic and most influential news, politics and current affairs websites in the UK. We work with these sites to help them earn revenue to sustain them and the important role they play in their political spheres, and also within the wider political debate.’

So, MessageSpace ensures financial subsidy to sustain these sites. During the fourth quarter of 2008 (the last figures quoted by the company), the income of bloggers broke down as follows:

• The single highest paid blogger had sales on average of £3,872 per month.• The top 10% of bloggers had monthly sales averaging £2,861 in - a rise of 64% from £1,741 last year .• The middle 40% of bloggers had average monthly sales of £351.• The remaining 50% had average monthly sales of £54.

Jag Singh, MessageSpace’s CIO says: “What the numbers show is that for our leading bloggers it is now possible to be a full-time professional. For the semi-professional bloggers it provides a few thousand pounds a year, earning them the enough for a family holiday. For the rest it certainly pays their internet bills and enough to upgrade to a new lap-top annually.”

Cranmer would rather have liked his recent holiday to have been paid for. He wrote to MessageSpace (three times) to enquire about community membership. When he finally received a response, it was a rejection. Though they assured him that he was ‘at the top’ for future consideration. But this was months ago, and other blogs have since joined who were clearly more ‘at the top’ than His Grace ever was. He is evidently not deemed to be an acceptable site for their advertisers, despite having reached in excess of 60,000 absolute unique visitors, and despite being far more highly ranked than many of the sites which are deemed to be acceptable.

And the reason can hardly be because His Grace caters for a small and insignificant religio-political niche. Pink News is part of the MessageSpace network, and one is left to observe once again that the political concerns of the Christian majority are subsumed to those of vocal minorities.

Surely the ‘pink pound’ cannot be worth more than the holy one.

What is interesting to note is that Labourlist and LibDem Voice feature prominently in Wikio’s Top 10, but ConservativeHome (not part of the MessageSpace network) comes in at No17, beneath His Grace.

It is, of course, ludicrous to believe that ConservativeHome is in any sense less influential or informative or less widely read that either Labourlist or LibDem Voice.

Blog lists are increasingly discredited as a means of assessing popularity, influence or connectivity. Even Technorati has changed the way it calculates how many sites link to a certain blog, such that Cranmer’s ranking now swings anywhere between 123 and 277 in the space of a few hours.

But the MessageSpace distortion appears to be incontrovertible.

Perhaps someone with a lot of time on their hands might develop the appropriate algorithm so that yet another list might be produced to negate the effect.

Personally, I think that most of these other blogs you speak about are 'shit'. The Fawkes blog appeals to wallies (read the comments), it is simply vogue to be commenting on it. Some of the comments on here (my own including) leave a lot to be desired for, but I get the impression that the comments are mostly on topic, and usually your topical grasp outclasses any of the other 'shit' by a long shot.

Sometimes you get on my wick with your overt Tory bias, but in all fairness you do fisk the nonsense of everyone, which is more than can be expected from the likes of Dale, who simply talks a load of bollocks for the most part. Basically, you make for refreshing reading in a world of spin and queer BS.

I feel that my world is finished. The world for me used to be so incredibly simple and straightforward, but all this has faded into black. It used to be that my sort would get born, go to school and be educated, then get a job. If you lacked the minerals for anything majorly academic, then you found something more leaning to your abilities and persona in general. Then you got a girlfriend, fiddled around for a few years and got married, for one reason or another.

Then, all of a sudden, the people who run the country decided that my kind are no longer important. They filled the country with all manner of alien filth who get priority over everything. We are made to pray to their god, eat their sacrificial meat; they crush our grave yards, they turn our cities into eastern barbaric slums. We are not allowed to speak out against this. We have become like mentally sick sheep. We get slapped down by every department that there is by people who have worked out the equation which helps them to get on in the new mixed up and mentally sick world. They have learnt the new language, which generates the desired short term results, at the expense of future annihilation.

This is what makes all the other blogs you speak of 'shit'. Where at least here, some of these concerns are recognised, if only in a minor way.

About His Grace:

Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’ It is the fusion of the two in public life, and the necessity for a wider understanding of their complex symbiosis, which leads His Grace to write on these very sensitive issues.

Cranmer's Law:

"It hath been found by experience that no matter how decent, intelligent or thoughtful the reasoning of a conservative may be, as an argument with a liberal is advanced, the probability of being accused of ‘bigotry’, ‘hatred’ or ‘intolerance’ approaches 1 (100%).”

Follow His Grace on

The cost of His Grace's conviction:

His Grace's bottom line:

Freedom of speech must be tolerated, and everyone living in the United Kingdom must accept that they may be insulted about their own beliefs, or indeed be offended, and that is something which they must simply endure, not least because some suffer fates far worse. Comments on articles are therefore unmoderated, but do not necessarily reflect the views of Cranmer. Comments that are off-topic, gratuitously offensive, libelous, or otherwise irritating, may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on any thread does not constitute their endorsement by Cranmer; it may simply be that he considers them to be intelligent and erudite contributions to religio-political discourse...or not.

The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

British Conservatism's greatest:

The epithet of 'great' can be applied only to those who were defining leaders who successfully articulated and embodied the Conservatism of their age. They combined in their personal styles, priorities and policies, as Edmund Burke would say, 'a disposition to preserve' with an 'ability to improve'.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS.(Prime Minister 1979-1990)

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC.(Prime Minister 1957-1963)

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can).(Prime Minister 1940-1945, 1951-1955)

I am not struck so much by the diversity of testimony as by the many-sidedness of truth.Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC.(Prime Minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937)

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC.(Prime Minister 1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895-1902)

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.Benjamin Disraeli KG, PC, FRS, Earl of Beaconsfield.(Prime Minister 1868, 1874-1880)

Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs.Sir Robert Peel, Bt.(Prime Minister 1834-1835, 1841-1846)

I consider the right of election as a public trust, granted not for the benefit of the individual, but for the public good.Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool.(Prime Minister 1812-1827)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.The Rt Hon. William Pitt, the Younger.(Prime Minister 1783-1801, 1804-1806)